Welcome to Midgar
by Red-tiki
Summary: Cloud has recently moved to Midgar and is attending school with his childhood friend and longtime crush, Zack. Moving from a small village to a capital city by himself and dealing with high school drama is a big challenge he's about to face. ZackxCloud


The _italic _sentences represents clouds inner thoughts.

* * *

I stood in front of the mirror, hands tucked into my pockets ready to analyse every detail of myself. Uniform: neat and tidy, shoes: clean and shiny, hair: blond and spikey. I let out a large sigh and tried to fix the small strands that stuck out.

"How annoying…" No matter how hard I tried to flatten this hair it would just spring back up. Getting called spikey all the time wasn't exactly a nickname I would've liked to have.

My bag was packed with all my new texts books and stationary, I always dreaded the first day of school for many reasons, one had to be the heavy bag that had to be carried. Another would be meeting new people; I wasn't always good at those kinds of things. I headed out of my cramped apartment that was still filled with unopened boxes while grabbing my phone from the bench on the way out. While waiting at the bus stop I decided to read the two unread text messages, one from my mum and the other from Tifa.

'Good morning sweetie, have fun on your first day of school, I know you're probably looking striking in your uniform that you should send me a lovely picture. Take care of yourself and don't forget to call me once in a while. I love and miss you lots. Xx'

'Cloud! Good luck today, I know you'll be fine. You have to come visit me in Nibelheim sometime soon okay?'

Both of them always worry too much about me; I was perfectly fine at taking care of myself. I actually feel more comfortable by myself. As the bus arrived, I took a seat that was distant from where others were sitting that way I could listen to my music without getting interrupted. I put my head phones in and zoned into my own world for the next ten minutes.

* * *

The school was enormous, I could hardly afford to attend a school like this when I could barely pay my rent. Right now my mum was giving me allowance but as soon as I find a job in Midgar I'll pay it myself. I hate being so dependent on others.

"Well! Look who it is! The little year 10 country school boy." My heart skipped a beat at the familiar bulky arm around my shoulder and cheery voice.

"Zack, don't do that…" I shoved the arm off my shoulder and continued to walk into the school, it was so much bigger on the inside. I could easily get lost in here, and there's so many people too…I didn't like it.

"Hey hey! Is that how you treat your best buddy whom you haven't seen in years?" He said while he walked beside me with a sad looking pout on his face.

_If I could I would've given you a giant hug_.

"It's only been 3 years, and plus I always talk to you anyway so it's not like it's any different."

It was totally different, seeing Zack's face in person made it harder to speak let alone breathe.

"Still the same small and stubborn Cloud I remember." He said jokingly while placing his big hand on my head to ruffle my hair. The sudden movement made me shrink my head down to my neck and moved his hand away.

"Hey! I've grown taller!" I retorted as I stood straight up but quickly deflated after Zack mimicked me. There was no way I could compare to Zack's tall and confident figure. I didn't understand how he could always look so outstanding without even trying.

"Haha Yeah you have, but you're still smaller than me." He wrapped his arm around my neck again yet this time pulled me closer to him. I could smell Zacks alluring scent…He really doesn't understand how I feel when he's always so touchy. If only I could just tell him to stop because he's giving me the wrong ideas. "So, where's your classroom Spikey?" There he goes again, calling me Spikey…

"I'm in classroom D3."

"Then where are you walking? It's all the way over there!" He pointed across the courtyard.

"Wh-wha-" I stuttered as I looked at the small map in my student diary, figuring out which way to turn it so it's facing the direction we're walking in.

"I'll show you a shortcut okay?" Before I could say anything in return he began walking in an opposite direction from the building, dragging me along by the neck. My feet stumbled until I caught up to his pace.

"Zack…this is not a shortcut."

"Okay it's not, but I have to show you something important." I glanced up at Zack who was smiling down to me before quickly looking away, there was no way I could hold direct eye contact for more than a second, it made me really flustered. There was also no point of arguing with Zack because he always manages to convince me.

"Fine, but hurry up. I don't want to be late on my first day."

* * *

The area we went to was almost secluded from the rest of the school, it seemed really peaceful. The trees and grass grew like it had been untouched for years; it was like a mini forest in this giant institute. As we got closer, I could see a small old looking building up ahead.

"This is the schools old courtyard when it was first built, there's not much space and the other buildings are far away from here so no one can really be bothered coming here. That old small building is where the sports equipment was kept, it's all empty now. I want you to come here at lunchtimes and afterschool, you can spend recess with your class friends, that way I get to spend more time with you and you can tell me all about what I missed out on these 3 years, okay?!"

"Ah..o-okay…"

When he says things like that he gets my hopes up, it's not healthy for me. Plus…I don't really want to explain the changes I went through in those 3 years. My mother and Zack's parents have been friends for a long time, so they would often visit us when they were on holidays. When I met Zack again 3 years ago I was going through puberty and so of course I wasn't used to the new 'experiences' with my body. He had grown so much from when I last saw him before, he was tall, his facial features had chiselled and his body was muscular. As usual, he would give me a hug but this time I had a strange feeling in my body. I thought maybe it was just because I missed him but the first time I was jerking off, Zacks image popped into my head and I was so ashamed of myself for even thinking of that. After that, I had realised I wasn't attracted to girls, but to guys…and it was only guys that looked similar to Zack that I really liked. Not being able to see him much just made it even worse, my feelings for him grew quickly that even just hearing his voice make me long for him more.

"Anyway-"The sudden sound of his voice made me snap out of my thoughts. "- we should get you to class, it's basically just straight from here."

"R-right." He began walking and looked back, indicating for me to follow him.

* * *

"You're class is just up ahead."

"Okay, thank you for showing me. Hey, Zack... W-what are you doing?" He walked ahead of me to the classroom and walked inside. I hurried after him curiously wondering why he was entering my class. As I drew closer I could hear his voice and another voice talking in a very quiet room.

"….then he must be so lucky and at the same time unlucky."

"Haha that's not nice to say! He's a good kid so take care of him. Bye!" As I was just walking in, Zack was finishing his sentence while leaving the room. He shoved me into the room by my shoulders and mumbled 'have fun' before leaving. The class sat and watched me in silence, while the teacher wore a warm smile.

"So then, you must be Cloud, you can call me Mr.G. Come and introduce yourself to the class." The brown haired teacher wore all black and had an unusual looking long red coat hanging over his chair.

"Good morning…My name is Cloud Strife, a-and I've just moved here from Nibelheim…"

"Thank you, you may go sit down now."

He began speaking before I had even sat down, the only free table was right at the front of the classroom. Although I'm glad I didn't have to walk down the aisles, I probably look like a loser. The other student's eyes watched my every move, and I could practically tell what they were thinking.

"Hey he said he's from Nibelheim right? How did he get into this school?"

"He's a total teacher's pet, I can tell."

"Was that other guy his boyfriend? He seems like a fag."

I knew this was going to happen. There would always be murmurs with stupid ideas. I didn't dare look around; I concentrated down at my desk hoping that everything would stop soon or the teacher would say something but he seemed to wrapped up in his teaching that he wasn't paying attention.

"Heh maybe he has some connections with the princi- wwooaah!"

There was a loud clatter of a chair falling down, taking the student sitting on it down too. On instinct I turned around, looking for who my saviour was.

"Sorry. My foot slipped."

The girl sitting behind the student on the ground had her legs stretched forward from kicking the chair, arms crossed and was a satisfied smirk on her face. When she saw me look at her, that smirk turned into a cheerful smile.

* * *

After the long class had ended, I wanted to leave as soon as possible. I know Zack had said I could hang out with my own friends at recess but even before class I had a strong feeling that I wouldn't make any friends. I scurried out the door the second the bell rang, not wanting to make a fuss with the other students that were murmuring in class.

"H-Hey you! Uh, what was it…oh, Cloud!" I had thought the girl was talking to someone else but upon hearing my name I l stopped and looked back. It was the girl who kicked the other students chair, she was tiny yet could manage looking tough when she wanted, she could do it better than I could if I tried.

"Oh hello, thankyou…for before."

"No problem! I get really annoyed when these idiots are judging people before they've even talked to them. So, I wanted to get to know ya! Do you have anyone to sit with for recess?"

"Not really but I enjoy being by myse-"

"Good! Then you can sit with me." Before I could even finish my sentence, the girl was already pulling me along with her. She was so…lively.

"Oh by the way, my name is Yuffie!" As she spoke she gave me another warm smile. It's actually quite shocking to see someone so cheerful and energetic all the time, she kind of reminded me of Zack.

The two of us just sat on a bench and talked, she did most of the talking but she'd always ask me my opinions on certain topics. She definitely knew how to keep a conversation going. I told her that at lunchtime I had to go somewhere so I wouldn't be able to sit with her.

* * *

As lunchtime came I felt quite tired, it was all too much to take in for a day and I had been looking forward to lunchtime, only for one thing of course. When reaching the empty spot, I leaned on the door of the building, letting out air I didn't know I was holding in.

"haah…Zack…" If only I could express all these feelings bunched up inside, I felt like I could explode. My body jumped as the door behind me disappeared. I lost my balance and was falling backwards but was stopped by a sturdy chest and large hands that held my shoulders. I quickly stood back up on my feet and swivelled around to see Zack standing, still with his hands positioned like they were on my shoulders before dropping them.

"A-ah…Zack, hi." My heart felt like it was beating out of my chest and my body was so hot. I was just hoping that he didn't hear me say his name, I felt so embarrassed that I couldn't even look up from the ground.

"Hey, Spikey! Sorry I didn't know you were leaning on the door."

"It's alright." I lifted my head a little to look at Zack but my eyes were distracted by the inside of the building.

The outside looked old and mouldy…but the inside…the insides walls were covered in drawn and painted artwork. It was truly breathtaking.

"Zack…did you do all of this?"

* * *

**Hello! I'm sorry it's been a while since I uplouded a story. I've been quite busy. This story is a little bit similar to my previous ZackxCloud fanfic but I wasn't sure where that one was heading... anyway thanks for reading this fanfic and it will definately be continued! **


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